William Ford Watson Porteous

Flight Lieutenant William Ford Watson Porteous, DSO, DFM and Bar (service number 171282), was a Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve airman and the son of James Sargent Porteous and Mildred Porteous of Portree on the Isle of Skye. He served as an air bomber with No. 7 Squadron, a Pathfinder Force unit flying the Avro Lancaster, and had built a distinguished record over many operations before his death at the age of 23. His first Distinguished Flying Medal was gazetted on 2 November 1943 — sharing that page of the London Gazette with Flight Sergeant Arthur Aaron, VC, DFM — and was followed by a Bar to the DFM later that month and the Distinguished Service Order, gazetted on 30 May 1944. He was killed in action in the early hours of 20 May 1944 when his Lancaster was lost over the target during a Bomber Command attack on the railway marshalling yards at Le Mans, Sarthe, in occupied France, one of the pre-invasion transport raids of that spring; sources differ on whether his aircraft collided with another or was brought down by flak. Flight Lieutenant Porteous is buried in Le Mans West Cemetery, France.